Breaking News! Michael Blackburn is judging the Chapbook Contest 2017

Michael Blackburn (born 1954) is a British poet.

From 1976 to 1978 Blackburn was an editor on Poetry & Audience, the poetry magazine produced by The School of English at the University of Leeds. Together with the American poet, Michael Coffey, he edited a special translations issue.

During the early-to-mid-1980s he was an editor on Stand Magazine, Newcastle Upon Tyne.

In 1985 he founded the poetry press, Jackson’s Arm, and in 1986 co-organised the readings at the Morden Tower in Newcastle with the poet Brendan Cleary, including the first Poetry Marathon in the northeast.

In 1987 he set up a small literary magazine, Harry’s Hand, which ran for four issues from London.

In 1988 he became Lincolnshire’s first Literature Animateur (Literature Development Worker), a post he held until 1993. During that period he also established Sunk Island Publishing, which issued Sunk Island Review, an irregular paperback of new poetry, fiction, reviews and translations plus occasional novels and other titles (Radio Activity by John Murray, Hallowed Ground by Robert Edric, etc.).

In 1995 he was a Writer in Residence on the Internet, courtesy of Arts Council/Channel, based at Artimedia in Batley, Yorkshire, and produced the hypertext project, The Last of Harry.

In 1988 he became a Fellow of the RSA.

From 2005–2008 he was the Royal Literary Fund fellow at the University of Lincoln where he now teaches English Literature and Creative Writing.